


Milk Has Nothing to Do with It

by thenthekneehits



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: (imagined), Crack, M/M, Male Lactation, Pining, Pining Rhett, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 14:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3771478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenthekneehits/pseuds/thenthekneehits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day Rhett suddenly can't stop thinking about Link's chest.</p>
<p> <br/><em>It would make some amount of sense that gay men would find male nipples attractive, though. Men found women’s nipples attractive and they looked fairly similar. It was probably a biological response that sticks with you regardless of your sexual orientation. In that sense, it was normal for straight men to find men’s nipples attractive as well, wasn’t it? Was that how it worked?</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Milk Has Nothing to Do with It

As Rhett squeezed into the car one morning, he came to the realization that Link's tight t-shirts could indeed get tighter. The man's biceps – though smaller than Rhett's, mind you – lost no definition encased in the thin white fabric. Most importantly, Rhett could see _them_. The things you should not see through a t-shirt.

“Good morning!”

“Morning.”

Rhett made sure to look away before chuckling. He was tempted to make fun of the shirt, but decided against it in favor of maximizing the resulting embarrassment by allowing Link to wear it all day first. He'd enjoy witnessing the redness of Link's face upon him realizing he'd filmed an episode wearing _that_. What the hell had he been thinking that morning? Was the shirt a present? It looked more like an undershirt than something a respectable man would wear out, whether it was hot or not.

Hot outside. Not that it _looked_ hot. Rhett supposed that some could find it hot. Wearing it wasn't far from being shirtless really, was it? Someone who found shirtless men hot would probably find the shirt hot. Maybe Christy had bought it for Link. She was his wife. She should find him hot. It should be in her interests to maximize the hotness. Not that Rhett would know whether the hotness was maximized or not.

Wasn’t the car going a little too fast? Rhett couldn’t properly see outside of the car, all he saw was Link gripping the steering wheel hard enough for it to tighten his pecs.

Link did have nice nipples though, maybe. Did women even _really_ care about men's nipples? After all, they had no biological advantage. Rhett had watched a documentary (with a large amount of disturbing imagery) that explained how the most likely reason men had nipples was because breastfeeding was such an important feature for mammals. Due to that, nipples were formed at a very early stage of a fetus' development, before the distinction of gender. The documentary had also explored male lactation, which Rhett tried to just push from his mind. This was not the place.

Rhett looked up and at Link again. Now he didn't feel like laughing as his eyes quickly skimmed through the man's torso.

It would make some amount of sense that gay men would find male nipples attractive, though. Men found women’s nipples attractive and they looked fairly similar. It was probably a biological response that sticks with you regardless of your sexual orientation. In that sense, it was normal for straight men to find men’s nipples attractive as well, wasn’t it? Was that how it worked?

They were so small and flat.

“Chad bought this shirt, okay, Rhett? It’ll be fine.”

“Who’s Chad?”

Chad was Link’s boyfriend. Link was gay.

“What the hell, Rhett? What’s wrong?”

Since when had he been gay? Had he always been gay? He had. Then _why_ – everything Rhett had _wanted_ -

“But I love you.”

Rhett’s mind filled up with everything he tried not to think about. Smooth teenage skin and hair in strange places. Lips that looked too firm but _so beautifully shaped_. Bright twinkling eyes too deep-set and small, a jawline he’d convinced himself he felt nothing but jealous of, collarbones you could bite into.

He told Rhett he’d felt something. Only when they were younger. Not anymore – Rhett had never said anything! – he loved someone else now. It was serious, Rhett should know that. They were planning on a baby…

Link’s shirt formed two fully see-through spots as his pink nipples began to flood.

 

Rhett laughed when he woke up, but the rest of the day he felt inexplicably unhappy. When he saw Link, he kept getting an urge to touch him. Hug him tight, grab him tight, touch him so that it hurt, so that Link would notice him and somehow ease the confusion he felt. Rhett wasn’t sure how exactly. Maybe with the right look or the right words. Regardless, Rhett didn’t touch him.

Rhett did look at his chest on many an occasion. It was just to check that the man’s t-shirt wasn’t wet anywhere.

He could still see a little bit, despite the fact that Link was not wearing a t-shirt in any way similar to the ridiculous one in Rhett’s dream. (What on Earth had his brain been doing...) Link’s shirt hugged his pecs and shoulders, revealing contours but not color – or the tiny flat contours Rhett still subconsciously looked for. It was just, it had been a long time since he saw them. What if they looked really different? For some reason, the idea of that bothered Rhett. He knew he shouldn’t care either way, but he did. It was important to him. That was just how things were sometimes; people became invested in something they didn’t actually care about just because they suddenly realized it was out of their reach. That was how Rhett felt. If he just saw the nipples, he’d forget about it.

At this point he was beginning to feel like just grabbing Link’s shirt and dragging it up to his armpits. It’d be easy enough with how relaxedly Link was sitting in the desk chair, one arm already conveniently raised up to fix his glasses. Rhett could lift the remaining lowered arm up with one hand and the shirt with the other, until nothing but Link's messy hair peeked from the top.

Oh, hair! Link in the dream had not had hair under his shirt. In reality Link had hair on his nipples. Link grew chest hair long before Rhett did, actually. When he was younger it was one of the things he both admired and envied in Link. Link's hair was dark and noticeable, but Rhett realized that the last time he had taken a good look at Link's bare chest, it had been waxed (that had been a painful but rewarding episode). Maybe that was the issue. His brain knew he had the wrong image installed under "shirtless link" and wanted to fix the error.

Rhett was considering informing Link of this conclusion in order to get the man to _take off his damn shirt_ , but then Link looked up at Rhett and said: "You know, Christy wants me to wax my chest again. Unbelievable. I am not going through that for free! Did Jessie end up liking your hairlessness back then? We went on holiday afterwards so we never talked about it. Christy liked it..."

Oh, oh, oh. "Is your chest hair really that bad? Show me."

"You know what it looks like, man. It's not like it's a rug or anything. You dodged my question." Link's tone turned mocking as he added: "Aww, you were so sure she was going to like it but she didn't, did she?" That cocky smirk.

"She did!"

"You wouldn't do it again though, would you?"

"Not really, no. But I have less hair than you. Maybe Christy has a point. Let me see and I'll say whether you need to wax it." Come on.

"I am not waxing my chest! She just mentioned it a little last night, it wasn't a big deal."

"You need to please your woman in any way you can, brother."

"You just said you won't wax yours."

"Jessie didn't really care either way."

"Hah! I knew it."

Rhett buried his face in his palm. Link was snickering.

Rhett dragged his hand down his face and looked at Link’s shaking form. Rhett's heart was thumping and his arms and hands felt twitchy. He had to do something.

He outstretched his arm and began to roughly prod Link's chest. He played it off the only way he knew how; as teasing: "You're gonna have a full torso of hair like your dad soon enough. Is it getting there? Hm? Christy must have noticed it."

Link was struggling to block the onslaught of Rhett's hands while reluctantly giggling from the tickle. "No! Get off! Stop, stop! It is nothing like my dad's!"

"It's gon' be, son!"

"Chest hair is the sign of manliness and I am not ashamed of it!" Link kicked the floor with his heels so that his chair rolled him out of Rhett's reach.

Both of them were breathless as they stared at each other from a few feet away and Rhett reveled in how Link could not keep himself from copying Rhett's smile soon enough.

After a quiet moment, Link confessed: “I guess I could do it if she asks again. It didn’t hurt _that_ much. Only as like a present though, for an occasion.”

“It looked pretty good, man, you should do it for her birthday.”

Link giggled awkwardly and rolled himself back to his desk.

Now that he was in Rhett’s reach again, the man’s urge to rid him of his shirt came back. He couldn’t think of a way to justify doing it so he held himself back and the moment was gone.

 

A good strategy was the way to get things done, so Rhett had to devise a plan. Link had no problem undressing in Rhett’s presence – it actually happened fairly often. Rhett cursed himself for not having had paid attention in those occasions because now Link just _would not take off his shirt_ all of a sudden. Right when Rhett actually needed to see. 

_What if he really had puffy milk-filled nipples?_ Was he trying to hide them?

Rhett felt like banging his head against his desk. That dream had messed him up. Science still existed. Biology was still as it should be. Then again, in that documentary they said that dysregulation of hormone levels could fairly commonly lead to men-

Back to the plan. Link had to undress of his own volition somehow. Rhett knew the man well, so he should be able to come up with a way to make him do it. He thought of making up an idea for a video that would require Link to undress in order to change clothes, but that would take too much time to execute. He needed to get this done _today_.

Maybe an idea that would require Link to try a costume on in the original brainstorming session already? Possibly reusing an old costume that Rhett would tease the man couldn’t possibly fit into anymore...

It failed. Link laughed and said: “Yeah, no way will that fit!” Rhett’s pleas to make him try it anyway weren’t paid attention to.

Link would have totally fit into it, too. The man’s body was as good as it had been ten years ago.

Or twenty. Maybe a little more hairy and a little stronger, but still slender and smooth. Rhett felt pretty jealous of it at times. He always had. That’s why he’d so often only glanced at it, unable to bring himself to look at it for too long or he’d begin to feel strangely emotional.

He was an adult man now. He was confident in his body and he was prepared to finally take a long look at Link’s. 

Enough was enough. They were best friends. Link always accepted everything Rhett did (at least after some explanatory discussion). Rhett could play this off. There were so many things he’d managed to play off and Link had never suspected anything. There was nothing to suspect. It just seemed that way a little bit, but that was all brought up by society and meant nothing. Link understood, because he believed in their friendship so strongly. Friends should compliment each other. Friends should get to touch each other.

When Link got up from his desk and was most likely going to ask Rhett whether they should go home now, Rhett grabbed him from behind. A good strong hold with his full arms wrapped around the front of Link’s waist.

He kept his hold tight as his hands traveled upwards to cup Link’s pecs. He wanted to grab the collar of Link’s t-shirt and pull down until it ripped and the shirt fell off him.

Instead he managed to hold the squirming man in place while he lowered his hands to his stomach and roughly pushed his hands inside the hem of his shirt, up to his chest, dragging the shirt with them. Link wouldn’t stay in place so Rhett tucked his jaw on the man’s shoulder to strengthen his hold and keep him up against him. Link turned pliant.

“What the hell, Rhett? What’s wrong?”

Rhett remembered now. It came out just as easily this time: “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr: [thenthekneehits](http://thenthekneehits.tumblr.com/)


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